Historic Preservation Commission

City of Fresno City Hall 2600 Fresno Street Fresno, CA 93721 Meeting Minutes - Final Monday, February 25, 2019 6:00 PM Regular Meeting Fresno City Hall, Second Floor Room 2165N (Conference Room A) Historic Preservation Commission Chair Patrick Boyd Vice Chair Jason Hatwig, LEED, AP, BD+C Commissioners: Robin Goldbeck; Paul Halajian, AIA; Ron McNary; C. Kristina Roper, M.A.; Don Simmons, Ph.D. Staff: Daniel Zack, AICP Assistant Director; Laura van Onna, Historic Preservation Specialist; Amber Piona, Planner II, Recording Secretary; John Hastrup, Deputy City Attorney II Historic Preservation Meeting Minutes - Final February 25, 2019 Commission I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL The meeting was called to order by Chair Patrick Boyd at 6:03 PM. Commissioners Present: Patrick Boyd, Robin Goldbeck (late), Paul Halajian, Ron McNary, and Don Simmons Staff Present: Laura Groves van Onna, Talia Kolluri (CAO), Amber Piona and Dan Zack. Present 5 - Chair Patrick Boyd, Commissioner Don Simmons, Commissioner Ron McNary, Commissioner Robin Goldbeck, and Commissioner Paul Halajian Absent 2 - Vice Chair Jason Hatwig, and Commissioner C. Kristina Roper II. APPROVE MEETING MINUTES A. ID19-1287 Approve Minutes for January 28, 2019. Attachments: HPC_Minutes_Jan_28_2019 The minutes for January 28, 2019 were approved 3-0-1 with a motion by Commissioner Simmons and a second by Commissioner McNary. Commissioner Halajian abstained. Commissioner Goldbeck was not present for this vote. III. APPROVE AGENDA Historic Preservation Specialist Laura Groves van Onna made a correction to the agenda: the address for Commission Item A should be 373-383 N. Fresno St, not 375-383 N. Fresno St. The agenda with was approved with amendment 4-0 with a motion by Commissioner Simmons and a second by Commissioner McNary. Commissioner Goldbeck was not present for this vote. Commissioner Goldbeck arrived 6:05p.m IV. CONSENT CALENDAR City of Fresno Page 2 Historic Preservation Meeting Minutes - Final February 25, 2019 Commission A. None. V. CONTINUED MATTERS A. None. VI. COMMISSION ITEMS A. ID19-1288 CONSIDERATION OF APPROVAL OF REQUEST BY THE PROPERTY OWNER TO DESIGNATE THE FOLLOWING PROPERTY AS A HERITAGE PROPERTY AND ADOPT FINDINGS NECESSARY TO SUPPORT DESIGNATION PURSUANT TO FMC 12-1612: 1. The Paul A. Christenson Buildings Located at 375-383 N Fresno Street. Staff Recommendation: Approve Attachments: 375-383 N Fresno Attachments Historic Preservation Specialist Laura Groves van Onna presented the staff report on the application by the property owner’s to designate 373-383 N. Fresno St, Paul Christenson Buildings, as a heritage property. The property is associated with early 20th century commercial development and is potentially eligible as Local Register under Criterion i and iii. The owner is seeking designation as a Heritage Property to facilitate rehabilitation and may seek local listing at a later date. Staff recommends designation of the property. Commissioner Ron McNary: 373 is part of the property? My email gave the address as 377-383. Historic Preservation Specialist Laura Groves van Onna: 377-383 applies to the building on the right (the two story building), the building on the left (the one story building) is 373. They are both within the same parcel. Commissioner Robin Goldbeck: the confusion may also be coming from the City of Fresno Page 3 Historic Preservation Meeting Minutes - Final February 25, 2019 Commission agenda, which said 375-383 not 373. Groves van Onna: At the beginning of the meeting, I made an amendment to the agenda noting that everywhere it says 375 it should read 373. Chair Patrick Boyd: To add additional confusion, it actually says 375 on the building itself. Commissioner Don Simmons: I have a message from the property owner that because of rot and termites they are replacing storefronts in kind. He said the replacement will be as in the Peerless Building [1755 Broadway St]. I don’t know if that alters anything. Goldbeck: I spoke to one of the owners on the corner building. They have already been scraping paint off the bricks and the wood. Boyd: I spoke to renters next door today. They have a bunch of awnings that would retract; which are still visible on the two story building, building to the left as well. They have the originals in the back, and would like to resurrect it on the building. Commissioner Paul Halajian: What’s the proposed for it; commercial space and residential above? Not that it matters. Assistant Director Dan Zack: My understanding is that it would be a mixed use building. Laura? Groves van Onna: I believe that for the two story building, the ground floor would be used as commercial space and the upper floor rehabilitated for office use. When this is designated I will have to check with the property owner on his proposed project. Goldbeck: About awnings being brought back, would that come here? Groves van Onna: Depends if installation of awnings is a substantial alteration. City of Fresno Page 4 Historic Preservation Meeting Minutes - Final February 25, 2019 Commission Zack: In general, attachments to the building that could be removed are generally reviewed administratively, and that permanent alterations, especially to the façade, would be brought here. Groves van Onna: In this instance, if they were original, then it wouldn’t need to be brought to HPC. Goldbeck: So, were the awnings original, and not an add-on window. Zack: You can see on the buildings where they would retract in. Boyd: What did [the awnings on 373] look like? Goldbeck: Yes, that is the one I’m concerned about. Zack: I wonder if that was more of a canopy than an awning. Boyd: There are some buildings we have gotten involved in, when we had a historic photo to compare to. If they want to do something to that façade, would be great to know if the replacement of awnings is a desire and we’ll try to figure out what was there. Groves van Onna: I was able to find original drawings but not historic photos. I am not sure whether the original drawings include awnings. Halajian: The security grill on the door probably wasn’t original. Does that have to come off as part of the designation? Groves van Onna: I wouldn’t consider the feature a contributor to the building. Zack: We’ve never made anyone after designation remove or add features. It’s a matter of given the state that the building is in now; you can’t alter what remains of the historic features of the building without going through this process. The Daily Expositor Building [H.P. #292, 1029-1031 Fulton St.] City of Fresno Page 5 Historic Preservation Meeting Minutes - Final February 25, 2019 Commission was designated on its merits as Fresno’s oldest standing commercial building, and the site of Fresno’s first newspaper. Its appearance was drastically altered in the 1950s, and they haven’t been required to remove the siding. Now if they change it, it will have to follow the rules and come to this group. The same applies here, but if he’s going to do something significant to the façade then it would come to you. Small alterations can be handled administratively but significant alterations to the building will come to you to evaluate on its merits and see if its appropriate. Halajian: Philosophical question. What is meaningful about this building if so many alterations have been added which detract from it. What is it we’re celebrating here? Zack: I am actually astonished at how unaltered, especially the two story building, it is. The main building is there, the second story windows are still there; it’s remarkable how intact it is. One of the residential doors has been replaced and one remains. Halajian: The Peerless building was mentioned earlier, but laminated glass was put into the storefronts of that building so that they wouldn’t have to do this level of security. It would be great if the owner did something like that. Zack: Based on the Commissioner’s comments earlier that is what they are planning on doing. Simmons: That is what he’s planning on doing. Halajian: If that’s what he’s going to do that’s fantastic. Goldbeck: Heritage property designation also has a lower integrity threshold. Boyd: The intent of designating it as a Heritage Property is that they want the Historic Building Code. Simmons: There is very little happening in this neighborhood and this is an City of Fresno Page 6 Historic Preservation Meeting Minutes - Final February 25, 2019 Commission important building the Yokomi neighborhood so I am very pleased. It was going to be purchased by the [Community Regional Medical Center] to be used as offices. Members of the Commission and others had long conversations about using this building for the neighborhood not just for the CRMC. Zack: From this point north all the way to Belmont, there is an interesting degree of urbanity that you don’t usually see in Fresno. There’s a little bit in Tower, there’s a little bit here and there but not a lot of this urban stock, commercial nodes developing outside of Downtown. We never had a whole lot of to begin with and not much of what we did have remains. At Belmont there is a two-store brown brick building that is really neat. It’s an interesting ¼ mile strip there from McKenzie up to Belmont. No Public Comment The application by the property owner for the listing of the Paul Christenson Buildings, 373-383 N. Fresno St., as a Heritage Property was approved 5-0 on a motion by Commissioner Simmons and a second by Commissioner Goldbeck. B. ID19-1289 FORMALIZE SUBCOMMITTEE FOR THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR HISTORIC MAINTENANCE MONITORING. Historic Preservation Specialist Laura Groves van Onna noted that at the January HPC meeting under Unscheduled Items, the Commission approved a subcommittee to attend Maintenance Monitoring Committee. At that meeting Commissioner Simmons and Commissioner Roper agreed to participate. After the meeting, an invitation was extended by staff to Commissioners not present at the January meeting to participate in the subcommittee, Commissioner Halajian offered to participate and Commissioner Goldbeck offered to serve as a backup. The next meeting of the subcommittee is Wednesday February 27, 2019 at 1:00p.m. No Public Comment The Subcommittee for the Advisory Committee for Historic Property City of Fresno Page 7 Historic Preservation Meeting Minutes - Final February 25, 2019 Commission Monitoring was approved 2-0-3 on a motion by Commissioner McNary and a second by Commissioner Boyd. Commissioners Simmons, Halajian and Goldbeck abstained. VII. CHAIRPERSON'S REPORT VIII. UNSCHEDULED ITEMS A. Members of the Commissioin 1. Training Training- Commissioner Don Simmons will be attending California Preservation Foundation workshop on Adaptive Reuse in Historic Properties on March 22, 2019, in San Francisco. B. Staff 1. Heritage Fresno Heritage Fresno-Historic Preservation Specialist Laura Groves van Onna introduced Linda Scambray, co-president for Heritage Fresno. Linda Scambray: I am co-chair with Janice Stevens. We’ve formed a board and met once. We are kind of adopting a cause—to help the Merci Boxcar put in a new place with a roof on it to keep the structure. We’ll be here at the next meeting to discuss that topic with you. C. General Public None. IX. NEXT MEETING: March 25, 2019, 6 PM Conference Room A, City Hall. X. ADJOURNMENT Chair Boyd adjourned the meeting at 6:27 PM. City of Fresno Page 8